City Jail

The only thing more amusing than Gov. Martin O'Malley's response to the incompetence and negligence of yet another of his state agencies (in this case, the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services) by calling a "task force" ("O'Malley forms task force on city jail," May 28), is his denomination of it as a "powerful new weapon in our arsenal. " He should be a carnival barker. Thomas F. McDonough, Towson

It's almost a year since federal authorities announced that Tavon White and the Black Guerrilla Family gang had corrupted the Baltimore City Detention Center from the inside out, and this week's New Yorker magazine has an expansive look at the case. Staff writer Jeffrey Toobin casts a close eye over the sexual dynamics in the jail, pointing to misogynistic ideas espoused by the BGF's founder in the 1960s, and repeated up by former Maryland gang leader Eric Brown. George Jackson, who founded the BGF in a California prison, was steeped in many of the left wing ideas popular in the 1960s, but he roundly rejected calls for women's rights and espoused polygamy as a way to care for women who would otherwise go unmarried, according to Toobin.

The U.S. Justice Department has returned to the Baltimore city jail and booking center to determine whether progress has been made since its investigators issued a scathing report three years ago decrying problems with medical care, sanitation and other troubling conditions for inmates. "They are looking to get an accurate understanding and update on the current conditions at the institution," said Karen V. Poe, a spokeswoman with the state public safety department. "It's not an adversarial situation.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Heather R. Mizeur said Tuesday that she doesn't want to spend the more than $500 million it would take to replace the badly deteriorated Baltimore jail, but said she recognizes something must be done to replace the "decrepit" state-run facility. Appearing at a Baltimore Sun Newsmakers Forum, Mizeur said that while building a new jail seems to go against her pledge to end "mass incarceration" in Maryland, it would be "inhumane" not to find a way to improve the facility - parts of which are more than a century old. "I have tried to find a way to just say no to it," she said.

Despite objections from youth advocates and some city lawmakers, momentum is building in the State House to construct a new 120-bed jail in Baltimore for youths who are charged as adults. Debate over the proposed jail has swirled in Baltimore and the halls of Annapolis since 2010, with state officials demanding more space for imprisoned youths and advocates saying the resources would be better spent on education and prevention. "I think that it has been studied enough," said Del. Adrienne A. Jones, after a House Capital Budget Subcommittee briefing on the project Wednesday morning.

A city jury convicted on Thursday a 41-year-old inmate in the 2006 stabbing death of a man that occurred in the Baltimore City Detention Center and led to policy changes at the facility. Matthew T. Evans, who has been in federal custody, was convicted of first-degree murder in the killing of Anthony E. Conaway, 41, who was being held on burglary charges when he was fatally stabbed March 13, 2006, at the city jail. The case, which has been postponed numerous times since charges were brought in 2007, went to the jury Tuesday, and jurors were to continue deliberating charges against Evans' co-defendant, Tivon Wright.

To anyone with the gift of vision, it's obvious the Baltimore City Detention Center is an outdated building in every sense of the word ( "Replace city jail, lawmakers urge," Dec. 12). Sure, to raze the current building and rebuild with modern-era enhancements is a much-needed move. But that's only a part of the battle to be fought regarding the incarceration dilemma that hovers over the city like a fanatical nightmare. If the new building is erected, the X factor still comes down to those who will be put in place to run it, from the top down.

Regarding your recent blurb about Family Fun Day, I noted the headline was a gloss on one of Gilbert & Sullivan's most memorable songs from the "Pirates of Penzance" ("This day, a policeman's lot was a happy one," April 29). That charming ditty concludes with the refrain "When constabulary duty's to be done, to be done, a policeman's lot is not a happy one!" "Pirates," which debuted in the U.S. in New York City on Dec. 31, 1879, has always been a favorite on this side of the pond - so much so that by the 1920s its chorus, "Come, friends, who plow the sea," had acquired new, rather scurrilous lyrics that are still well known.

Until two weeks ago, detainees at the Baltimore City jail were wearing street clothes, despite rules forbidding casual attire. Previous administrations did not enforce the regulation. But after Wendell M. "Pete" France took over as commissioner of pretrial detention for Maryland's prison system in January, he ordered everyone at the state-run detention center and Central Booking to don jumpsuits. The inmates protested, and last month they began setting small fires in trash cans that soon numbered a dozen.

Polygraph tests for three top officials at the Baltimore City Detention Center began Sunday, in an effort to determine the extent of the corruption federal investigators allege plagued the jail. Rick Binetti, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, declined to comment Sunday on the outcome of the polygraph tests for interim jail administrator Ricky Foxwell and two deputy administrators. The corrections department's internal affairs unit and Maryland State Police investigators administered the polygraphs, and the information gleaned from them could factor into potential disciplinary actions or the decision to prosecute.

Drivers have reported that new cell phone blocking technology at the Baltimore City Detention Center may be extending beyond the jail's walls, despite assurances to the contrary. Three people have told The Baltimore Sun that they were using their cell phones in the past week and a half while driving near the jail and that their calls were interrupted with a recording that said they were using an unauthorized or illegal device. State officials on Friday announced the new cell phone blocking technology, which is intended to stop inmates from directing criminal schemes while behind bars.

In response to the article "Replace city jail, lawmakers urge" (Dec. 12), are they serious? Half a billion dollars to replace the jail? The jail is not the problem. The jailers are the problem. And the "state legislative commission" is planning to rob every Maryland taxpayer instead of correcting the corrections officers. Ludicrous! Jim Nealey, Severna Park - To respond to this letter, send an email to talkback@baltimoresun.com . Please include your name and contact information.

To anyone with the gift of vision, it's obvious the Baltimore City Detention Center is an outdated building in every sense of the word ( "Replace city jail, lawmakers urge," Dec. 12). Sure, to raze the current building and rebuild with modern-era enhancements is a much-needed move. But that's only a part of the battle to be fought regarding the incarceration dilemma that hovers over the city like a fanatical nightmare. If the new building is erected, the X factor still comes down to those who will be put in place to run it, from the top down.

The sudden resignation of Gary D. Maynard as secretary of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services has huge implications both immediate as well as a few years down the road ( "State public safety and corrections secretary stepping down," Dec. 10). The immediate impact points to the instability of Mr. Maynard's leadership - or lack of it - as state and federal authorities continue their investigation of an alleged takeover of the Baltimore City Detention Center by the Black Guerrilla Family prison gang.

A woman who supplied Black Guerrilla Family gang members with drugs to sell at the Baltimore jail pleaded guilty Wednesday to a conspiracy charge in federal court. Tyesha Mayo, 30, obtained marijuana and prescription pills and handed them off to corrupt corrections officers, who smuggled them past the walls of the Baltimore City Detention Center and into the hands of gang leader Tavon White, according to facts supporting her plea presented in court. In return, White paid Mayo using electronic transfers and cash, according to the statement.

A corrections officer pleaded guilty Monday in federal court to smuggling drugs into the Baltimore City Detention Center for members of the Black Guerrilla Family gang. Adrena Rice, 25, could be sentenced to a maximum of 20 years for "frequently" bringing drugs into the detention center on the behalf of Tavon White, prosecutors said in court. Authorities identified White as a top-ranking Black Guerrilla Family member at the jail who worked with correctional officers to get drugs and cellphones into the jails.

I have followed national news reports of 13 correctional officer involved in partnership activities with inmates as well as four female correctional officers getting pregnant by inmates ("Alleged gang leader in poor jail conditions, his lawyer says," May 15). No one can deny that this is alarming and disgraceful! Unions will say it is the result of under-staffing and more money is the answer. Money and more staff is not the answer. It is leadership! Gov. Martin O'Malley demonstrated his lack leadership skills and lack of common sense when he endorsed the union's bill of rights which gives correctional officers an automatic appeal before three correctional officers.

Corrections officers at the Baltimore City Detention Center were preparing for a middle-of-the-night search of jail cells, aimed at rooting out drugs, cellphones, weapons and any other contraband inmates had stashed away. But the officers weren't the only ones getting ready. Hours before the planned checks in January, an FBI affidavit says, word reached Tavon White, an inmate who prosecutors say reigned as the jailhouse leader of a violent gang called the Black Guerrilla Family. White's alleged tipster, according to court records: a corrections officer at the jail.

By Carrie Wells and Ian Duncan, The Baltimore Sun | September 14, 2013

Jeffrey Bryant should have been in a Baltimore jail on the night he came to the door of Ronald Reives' apartment. Instead, police say, Bryant and two other men attacked Reives - one of them stabbing him in the back and puncturing his lung. Because of a mistake at the Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Facility, Bryant had been released a week before the stabbing. "It's really surprising to me," Reives, 28, said Friday after being told that Bryant, an old neighborhood acquaintance, was supposed to have been in custody.

Baltimore is your unpredictable uncle in a bathrobe - sweet one minute, grouchy the next; as kind as an old friar today, as menacing as a hit man tomorrow. This town will baffle you. It is sane and insane, charming and ugly, cosmopolitan and puny, brilliant and middling, future thinking and stuck in its ways. Maybe every city is like this, particularly those with lingering violent crime. Every city with lingering violent crime probably has an old-school bakery or a revered deli where you can still get amazing smoked herring.